Wednesday, 27 October 2004

7 sleeps.

As i'm sure you're all aware, the US election is coming up. One of my American friends, Sandy, has already made her way down to Florida to do her part in making the elections there as transparent and inclusive as possible. I am very proud of her for doing this. It's nice when people get up off their proverbials and actually do things.

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

These so-called "caging" emails (one & two) were caught at georgewbush.org (pro-democrat site), when people mis-addressed emails intended for georgewbush.com (the official re-election site), where they were gathered up merrily by a wildcard email trap before being forwarded on to Palast. Or so it seems.

Ever feel like there's too much information to make an informed decision? Sandy! Sandy?